The development of marketing materials is a collaborative process requiring the input of many interested parties who often have different perspectives and priorities when creating or revising the materials. Conventionally, marketing materials involves a time- and paper-intensive, iterative process of composing a draft of marketing materials on paper or computer, printing the draft onto paper, marking up the paper draft to denote changes that need to be made, then revising the draft (whether on paper or computer) based on the marked up paper draft. In addition to consuming a significant amount of paper and time resources, the conventional markup process is also difficult to coordinate.
Software packages such as Adobe Dreamweaver™ and Microsoft Word™ have attempted to improve upon the conventional paper-based process by providing proprietary solutions. Adobe Dreamweaver™ is a popular stand-alone software package for designing, developing and maintaining websites and Internet applications. Dreamweaver™ is designed to allow a single licensed user to create and edit nearly any aspect of a website. Microsoft Word™ is a popular stand-alone software package for word processing that includes a feature called “Track Changes” which uses metadata to store the series of changes in the documents format and content. Although Word™ generally focuses allowing a single licensed user to create and revise standard word processing documents, the Track Changes feature allows a second user to see the revisions made by a previous user.
Further, some versions of Microsoft Netmeeting™ and other programs have attempted to allow for collaborative viewing and editing of images using a “whiteboard” space shared among, for example, videoconferencing users. Additionally, conventional approaches also include shared browsing of web pages and allowing a user to post or upload personalized content to a hosted webpage such as a web log (blog), social networking page, or discussion group.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,266,683 to Yehuda et al., the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, describes a computerized document system for managing a document acted upon by at least one participant in creating, evaluating or revising the document. The Yehuda system parses or divides the document into a plurality of segments based on the content of the document, receives comments from a participant pertaining to a segment of the document, and associates each comment with the segment to which the comment pertains.
U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2007/0073776 to Kalalian et al. describes an enterprise-level, digital asset management system that allows users to upload digital assets, such as digital image files, to a central on-line site to view, edit, manage, arrange, organize, annotate and adjust the digital images. Multiple parties can communicate and collaborate with one another in real-time in connection with a project involving the digital images. A user-interface module can display editing tools to allow a user to mark-up a displayed image and to enter text notes on a displayed image. Other users with appropriate privileges can view these mark-ups and text notes.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,724,918 to Yen et al. describes a software program that allows clients to exchange graphical information of free hand drawn sketches together with correlated multimedia information such as verbal information or secondary video information. Clients can create freehand sketches in which the drawing process is captured using time stamps. Accordingly, a sketch can be recreated later in a replay.
U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2003/0225764 to Smith et al. describes a system for displaying customer data to multiple users with varying editing permissions through a web-based interface. For example, the system allows a loan officer and real estate agent to collaborate on work associated with a prospective customer or a pending contract.
U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2004/0088647 to Miller et al. describes a system for processing extensible markup language (XML) documents over the web including an XML editing system having a template system for editing XML templates, a content editing system for editing XML content associated with a template, and a document collaboration system for controlling access to XML documents. For example, a document template may include a press release or product release template. Users check out XML documents for editing from an organization's database and check in the documents when finished, thereby creating an audit trail of users who edited the document. Users also have associated permission or privilege levels which restrict the extent to which the user can edit the document template or content. Upon checking a document in, another user is notified that the document is ready to review or edit.
U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2002/0091725 to Skok describes a method and apparatus for providing content creation and management within a browser context. A user can contribute to a web document by adding new material or editing data that is already part of the document. The process steps include authorization, creation and editing, approval and publishing.
U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2008/0059539 to Chin et al. describes a system allowing users to create, edit, manage, collaborate and communicate on documents such as word processing documents, spreadsheets, databases, slides and diagram editors. Documents are broken down into workable elements, and changes are tracked in a centralized database. Users use a web browser and/or desktop as the client front end. Changes to the document are communicated back and forth to the database using JavaScript and XML.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,687,878 to Eintracht et al. describes a system for collaborative document annotation in which notes associated with an image or text document are stored in a database on a central server. A client functions to display the document and provides the tools necessary to permit the user to create, edit, delete, retrieve and store notes.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,337,093 to Ramani et al. describes a system for collaborative three-dimensional (3D) markup. A 3D representation of a shape is obtained using a web-based interface. A client marks the 3D representation in the user workspace and additional clients are capable of displaying the marked-up 3D representation in their respective user workspaces.
Conventional solutions also include the screen capture software by TechSmith Corp., Snagit. Snagit allows a user to take a snapshot of a user's computer screen. The software also allows the user to edit the capture image, send or post the images to others, and organize the images.